Author Gaby Soutar

  Some restaurants have a soft opening, this place had a very hard one.   I passed it on the bus on the first night, and it was stowed out, with a red carpet and fire jugglers on the...

Never mind cabbage soup or grapefruit. One of the more esoteric weight loss plans of the Seventies was The Sexy Pineapple Diet by Inge and Sten Hegeler. It involved swapping regular food two days a week...

Call emergency book rescue, as the copy of Aran in its namesake cafe is worse than dog-eared. The hardback spine is cracked, the edges of its well-thumbed pages, once virginal white, are crumpled and...

"88 Dumbarton Road, please”. “That’s Two Fat Ladies”. This is how you play restaurant bingo with taxi drivers. They know all the city’s institutions – Rogano, “The Chip”, Gamba, La...

In Japan, they throw hanami festivals to celebrate the blooming of sakura. These plants are symbolic, as they represent the transience of life, and the Japanese phrase “mono no aware” – the awareness...

I’m the Christmas police. On the 1 December, I permit you to put up a few tasteful decorations. Don’t be like that neighbour who’s had a flashing-nosed Rudolph and a waving Santa in their window...

Cheeseburgers. That was our final meal on a recent visit to Madrid. My defence, apart from mild sunstroke, is that it was a Saturday night, and I had failed to prepare. It got later, the restaurants...

Private jets, penthouse suites, top of the podium. Champagne always seems to be drunk at altitude. People at ground level can keep their tepid beers and hot drinks, as they need to stay warm while...

If you’re looking for a book about diet and nutrition, 613.2 is your Dewey Decimal System number. I used to work in a library. Shelving and cataloguing were two of my least favourite jobs. Date stamping...

I am a survivalist when it comes to filling up on nibbles. At an evening event, 14 canapés are the rough equivalent of dinner. Stand near the kitchen, don’t chat or network (apart from with the waiting...